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Oil and gas fracking operators in North Dakota have dumped at least 1.7 million gallons of brine and 716,000 gallons of oil on the western plains between 2009 and 2011.  And that's just what they've reported.

The economic boom for that state is undeniable -- it's now the second largest producer of energy in the country. But ProPublica, the non-profit, public interest  investigative journalism organization, just published detailed look at what that boom is doing to the landscape. It's not pretty.

According to data obtained by ProPublica, oil companies in North Dakota reported more than 1,000 accidental releases of oil, drilling wastewater or other fluids in 2011, about as many as in the previous two years combined. Many more illicit releases went unreported, state regulators acknowledge, when companies dumped truckloads of toxic fluid along the road or drained waste pits illegally. 

Star Tribune photos

  Reporter Nicholas Kusnetz describes the economic explosion -- unemployment is now three percent, and the long slow decline in population has been reversed by an influx of new workers.We wrote about the social and economic impacts last year. But rents are as high as those in New York city, crime is up, and in many places the ground has been rendered sterile by  toxic spills. Kusnetz writes:

Six years ago, a four-inch saltwater pipeline ruptured just outside Linda Monson's property line, leaking about a million gallons of salty wastewater.

As it cascaded down a hill and into Charbonneau Creek, which cuts through Monson's pasture, the spill deposited metals and carcinogenic hydrocarbons in the soil. The toxic brew wiped out the creek's fish, turtles and other life, reaching 15 miles downstream.

After suing Zenergy Inc., the oil company that owns the line, Monson reached a settlement that restricts what she can say about the incident.

"When this first happened, it pretty much consumed my life," Monson said. "Now I don't even want to think about it."

The company has paid a $70,000 fine and committed to cleaning the site, but the case shows how difficult the cleanup can be. When brine leaks into the ground, the sodium binds to the soil, displacing other minerals and inhibiting plants' ability to absorb nutrients and water. Short of replacing the soil, the best option is to try to speed the natural flushing of the system, which can take decades.

Zenergy has tried both. According to a Department of Mineral Resources report, the company has spent more than $3 million hauling away dirt and pumping out contaminated groundwater — nearly 31 million gallons as of December 2010, the most recent data available.

But more than a dozen acres of Monson's pasture remain fenced off and out of use. The cattle no longer drink from the creek, which was their main water source. Zenergy dug a well to replace it.

Shallow groundwater in the area remains thousands of times saltier than it should be and continues to leak into the stream and through the ground, contaminating new areas.

 

What's disheartening is that state and federal regulators let it go.

State officials say they rely on companies to clean up spills voluntarily, and that in most cases, they do. Mark Bohrer, who oversees spill reports for the Department of Mineral Resources, the agency that regulates drilling, said the number of spills is acceptable given the pace of drilling and that he sees little risk of long-term damage.

Kris Roberts, who responds to spills for the Health Department, which protects state waters, agreed, but acknowledged that the state does not have the manpower to prevent or respond to illegal dumping.

"It's happening often enough that we see it as a significant problem," he said. "What's the solution? Catching them. What's the problem? Catching them."

  

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is investigating a report of an eagle killed by a wind turbine on the Minnesota-Iowa border. Pat Lund, top investigative officer for the agency's St. Paul office, declined to provide details. But he said that an investigation is underway, and the incident may have occurred at a facility that flanks the Iowa border in southwest Minnesota.

He could not say when the investigation would be complete. But if confirmed, it would be the first known death of an eagle at a Minnesota wind project.

In recent years, there have been four documented deaths and one injury to bald eagles from North American wind farms, and many more among golden eagles at one wind farm built along their migration path in California, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The impact of wind farms and bats and birds is an increasingly controversial issue as wind farms proliferate across the landscape. The threat to eagles has been a major stumbling block in the wind project proposed for Goodhue County near Red Wing.The area west of the Mississippi River is a nesting and migration area for eagles.

 Wind turbines at Minnesota's largest wind facility on Buffalo Ridge near Lake Benton, Minn.

 The Mississippi and Illinois rivers have more Asian carp than anywhere else on the planet. Even more than China where they came from, according to Brian Ickes, a biologist from the United States Geological Survey  who gave a presentation on Asian Carp at the Mississippi River Forum a few weeks ago.  In addition to the science, the presentation was rife with ironic observations, and a must read for anyone interested in Asian carp.

Fishermen Orion Briney and Jeremy Fisher use trammel nets to haul in black Asian bighead carp from the Illinois River near Peoria Il. They work out of a 24 ft. aluminum john boat, bringing in 3,000 carp with a full load.

He's studied carp in the Yangtze River basin in China, where the species are in precipitous decline thanks to pollution, development and over fishing. And that's ironic in a couple of ways. First, because the Chinese revere the fish.

"They call it the Leaping Dragon fish, a cultural symbol of bravery, perseverance, and strength, is (a) increasingly endangered in the wild; and (b) perhaps the most domesticated animal on the plant."

 That's not how we think of it, perhaps because here the species is in ascendance. Ickes points out -- another irony -- that the reason the fish are doing so well here is because we've been through that industrial pollution phase that China is experiencing now, and we've cleaned up our rivers. As a result, the fish can thrive here when they can't in their native land.
 

 "As far as wild populations go, the greatest density of Asian carp on the planet now likely exists in Illinois waters of the Illinois and Mississippi Rivers – places largely inhospitable to aquatic life a mere 60 years ago as we began recovery from our industrialization phase."

 Now here is the best part -- the series of historical ironies that land us where we are today.

"We are trying to keep invasive Chinese carps out of the Great Lakes, to protect an invasive (yet purposefully stocked) Pacific salmon fishery, which was stocked as a management tool to control hyper-abundant alewifes, another invasive fish species, because the native piscivore, the Lake Trout, was nearly wiped out by another invasive species, the sea lamprey, because people built the Welland Canal around Niagara Falls to promote intercontinental shipping deep into the Great Lakes basin."

A shipping canal started the sequence in 1939 with the completion of the Second Welland Canal, connecting the Eastern Atlantic to the interior Great Lakes. Similarly, the Cal-Sag Sanitary and Shipping Canal connects the Great Lakes to the interior of the North American continent and even the Gulf Coast."
 

Some Minnesota moms were among those who went to Washington D.C. this week to demand a new law to regulate the toxic chemicals that pervade all kinds of consumer products, from furniture to pillow cases. Called the Stroller Brigade, their determination was fueled by an impressive investigative series published this month by the Chicago Tribune called "Playing With Fire."  It details purposeful deception and lax federal oversight all in the name of toxic chemicals that aren't effective. 

Government scientists found that chairs containing flame retardants, like the one being tested above, burn just as fast as identical chairs without them. (Consumer Products Safety Commission / May 5, 2012)
 

 

"The average American baby is born with 10 fingers, 10 toes and the highest recorded levels of flame retardants among infants in the world. The toxic chemicals are present in nearly every home, packed into couches, chairs and many other products. Two powerful industries — Big Tobacco and chemical manufacturers — waged deceptive campaigns that led to the proliferation of these chemicals, which don’t even work as promised."

The chemicals have been linked to neurological defects, cancer, developmental problems and impaired fertility.

Democratic members of Congress and consumer groups have been pushing to pass the Safe Chemicals Act, which   would create a new process to monitor toxic chemicals used in consumer products. But at this point, the bill, which is opposed by the chemical industry, has no Republican sponsors.
 

An uplifting view of the world, and without a single human in it. Perhaps that's his point? Anyway, for those who care about preserving nature as it is, this is for you.  BBC One celebrates Natural History in this two minute video with David Attenborough reciting Louis Armstrong’s ‘What A Wonderful World’. 

Investing in bike and walking trails certainly increases the number of people who bike or walk, but is it financially efficient? That's one question that came up today after the story today on what happened after Minneapolis and the surrounding communities spent $25 million in federal funding on biking and walking infrastructure.

The short answer is yes. 5.4 percent of the money spent on transportation in the Twin Cities since 2005 pays for the 10 percent of the population that walks or bikes to work. (And 11 percent of the fatalities.)

The story published Friday describes the report the U.S. Department of Transportation sent to Congress on the outcomes of the $100 million pilot projects in four communities. The report had a lot to say about polllution and health and the increase in biking and walking. But it did not include an analyis of whether the investment made financial sense.

I asked Bike Walk Twin Cities  (BWTC) to crunch those numbrs, and this is what it came up with.  Since 2005 and 2011 the  transportation funding in the Twin Cities devoted to biking and walking totaled 5.4 percent of the total. (See the first chart below. )Those numbers came from Federal Highway Administration database (called FMIS).  I was especially struck by how much we spend on transportation -- $1.6 billion since 2005, and that's just The Twin Cities. Ouch. 

Then they used census data to come up with an estimates on commuters.(See the other charts below). In 2010, According to the census, 10 percent of the people in Minneapolis and 6 percent of the people in St. Paul either biked or walked to work on a regular basis. So 5.4 percent of the money pays for 10 percent of the commutes.It's not the whole picture, but it's telling.

In the report to Congress, Bike Walk Twin Cities estimated that the number of bikers in the Twin Cities increase 52 percent since the pilot project began. They based on that on annual surveys they do every year at 42 different locations, so they don't  have  a single baseline number -- they have 42. But the census data shows the same trend -- in Minneapolis bikers increased by 44 percent. 

So if you like transportation numbers, have at it.

 Source:  Federal Highway Administration FMIS database